


The Orpheus Soulmate Detector

by TheSciFiBlob



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Space, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 20:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29424225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSciFiBlob/pseuds/TheSciFiBlob
Summary: Atsumu didn’t really believe in destiny, but he did believe in physics and he definitely believed in the power of lovesick desperation. He bought the device from a branch store in the Upsilon planetary system, handing over a large wad of cash and an even larger chunk of his own pride.Worst case scenario, it would give him a no-nonsense, scientifically-driven reason to stop his pining and end his many years of suffering. You couldn’t argue with the laws of physics.Best case scenario? Well … Atsumu tried his best to tamper down his unruly hope.He was in the spaceship’s control room now, shoving the blue glowing orb in the faces of three of the crew. “It’s the new Orpheus Soulmate Detector!” he exclaimed.Alternately: The MSBY 4 bring their chaos to space.
Relationships: Akaashi Keiji/Bokuto Koutarou, Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio, Miya Atsumu/Sakusa Kiyoomi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 65
Collections: SakuAtsu Fluff Week 2021





	The Orpheus Soulmate Detector

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Sakuatsu fluff friends! Quick heads up that the first bit of this fic is mostly comedy & world-building, with the *smallest* bit (a couple paragraphs) of light pining-related angst. Lots of space-themed fluff among the stars, though, I promise. 
> 
> Disclaimer that I know next to nothing about astronomy, theoretical physics, or ecology. Please forgive me for any inaccuracies! The stars named as part of the Andromeda Galaxy are actually part of the Andromeda constellation.

The world ended when Hinata dumped a bucketful of sentient slime onto his desk.

Sakusa recoiled in disgust. “What in _Andromeda_ ,” he hissed, raising a shaking finger to point at the mess, “is _that_?”

The slime twitched, as if annoyed.

“Hey!” Hinata popped up between Sakusa and the desk, shielding the slime from Sakusa’s wrath. His hands were propped on his hips. “Don’t be mean to Tobio-kun!”

Sakusa’s left eye twitched. “... Did you name a ball of slime after your boyfriend?”

“He’s not a ball of slime!” Hinata turned to pet the mess with his hands, moving like he was handling a precious metal. “He’s a globber-mold! A beautiful, intelligent being! A cross between a globberbrain and a slime mold!” Delight was etched all over his face. “I found him on the asteroid we inspected yesterday!” 

“Lovely. Why is he on my desk and not in the waste incinerator.”

“Hey!” Hinata shot Sakusa a fiery glare. “He’s the first of his kind, okay? A scientific marvel. No one’s ever seen a cross between the globber and slime families before! He’ll be in all sorts of astrozoology papers, and then -- _whoosh!_ \-- on his way to stardom.” He stroked the ball of slime, cooing lovingly at it. 

The slime let out a soft burp. 

“Aw.” Hinata scratched its side. “Are you hungry, little guy?” He looked up and began to scan the room with his eyes. “Hey Omi, do we have any spare scraps of rubber?”

“I told you to stop calling me that.”

Hinata’s eyes landed on Sakusa’s hair. “Perfect!” he cried. Before Sakusa could react, Hinata had snatched the hair tie from Sakusa’s bun.

“Oi!” Sakusa snapped, curls falling into his face. “Hey -- give that back!”

“Here you go, little guy.” Hinata dropped the hair tie like a crown onto the globber-mold. Sakusa watched in horror as the creature seemed to reorganize itself, oozing upward to swallow the object whole. 

“Globber-molds are soo cute,” Hinata sighed happily. 

“Ooh!” Bokuto’s head poked out from the control room, his eyes wide. “Did I hear something about a globber-mold?”

Hinata leapt ten feet into the air with excitement, then began chattering with Bokuto about his newest scientific finding. Sakusa stared at his slime-encased hair tie, buried within the globber-mold, with deep sorrow.

The sound of footsteps and raised voices echoed through the hallway -- just before a familiar head of mustard-yellow hair burst through the door. If Sakusa’s heart fluttered just a little at the sight, it didn’t mean anything.

Nothing at all.

“--can’t make fun of me, Samu!” Atsumu pouted, waving a strange pulsating blue orb in his left hand. “It’s the newest model from Orpheus Tech Inc.!”

A silver-haired mirror image followed him through the door. He could almost have passed for a corporeal presence -- if it weren’t for his soundless footsteps and the briefest flickers as the 3D projection of his body reloaded when he moved. 

Osamu’s face flickered, before stabilizing into an unimpressed glare. “Don’t tell me ya spent half yer paycheck on that scam, Tsumu.”

“S’not a scam, Samu!” Atsumu whined. “Hey, Omi-omi! Wanna have some fun? Wanna try out this new -- oh uhh … this new …” Atsumu had just caught sight of Sakusa standing with his hair down, curls framing his face. As everyone watched, he trailed off and his face turned an impressive shade of red.

Sakusa squinted at him. “Do you have a fever?”

“What? Oh! Oh, no!” Atsumu closed his mouth with an audible click. “No, ‘m perfectly healthy, doc! Perfectly, uh, completely sanitary!” His hands fluttered around his own hair for a few moments, then settled awkwardly by his sides.

Osamu snorted. “Yer droolin’ a little, Tsumu.”

“What?!” Atsumu almost dropped the orb in his search for a tissue.

Sakusa pointed at the pulsating blue orb in his hand. “Please tell me that’s not another previously undiscovered species that eats hair ties.”

Both Osamu and Atsumu looked at him strangely. “Beg yer pardon?” Osamu asked.

“It’s not,” Atsumu said, schooling his face into a neutral expression. “Promise, Omi.”

“Wait,” Hinata cut in. Both he and Bokuto had turned toward the blue orb, novel species momentarily forgotten. Hinata’s eyes widened in recognition. “That can’t be … is that … ?”

Atsumu’s lips had slipped into a wide, open-mouth grin. “Yep,” he said, eyes shining. “It’s the new Orpheus Soulmate Detector!”

* * *

In the five years he’d been a Navigator on board the MSBY Intergalactic, Atsumu had tried and stumbled and failed through countless confessions to the spacecraft’s resident physician.

There was the time Atsumu tried getting the food generator to churn out umeboshi, and set the kitchen on fire instead. (Osamu would never let him live it down). There was the time Atsumu picked a bouquet of purple _Toxicodendron callisto_ , not knowing they were poisonous, and spent a week in the medical bay with full-body hives. 

There was the time the crew watched a twin star supernova from the observation deck, and Atsumu whispered, a little wistfully, “Dontcha ever want somethin’ like that, Omi?” Sakusa had turned, eyebrows furrowed, and replied, “Exploding sounds pretty painful, if you ask me.”

Suna and Osamu would laugh at him, and he would insist his romantic life was going just splendid, thank you very much. Miya Atsumu, most sought-after bachelor in the Andromeda galaxy, did _not_ need a love intervention.

… Well, not one from his brother, at least.

He began hearing about the contraption on late-night message boards and AstralBook self-help groups. (Don’t ask why he was in them.) The newest astrophysiaffective breakthrough from Orpheus Tech Inc. -- a compass guaranteed to point you toward the one soul in the universe that the laws of physics had destined for you. 

Atsumu didn’t really believe in destiny, but he did believe in physics and he _definitely_ believed in the power of lovesick desperation. He bought the device from a branch store in the Upsilon planetary system, handing over a large wad of cash and an even larger chunk of his own pride. 

Worst case scenario, it would give him a no-nonsense, scientifically-driven reason to stop his pining and end his many years of suffering. You couldn’t argue with the laws of physics.

Best case scenario? Well … Atsumu tried his best to tamper down his unruly hope.

He was in the spaceship’s control room now, shoving the blue glowing orb in the faces of three of the crew. “It’s the new Orpheus Soulmate Detector!” he exclaimed. A jolt of excitement shot through his veins.

“No way!” Hinata cried, leaping up and down on the soles of his feet. “I can’t believe you actually got one of them! Kageyama’s been telling me all about the newest model. I think the Adlers crew were trying to get one for Ushijima as a joke gift, since he got engaged to those two chocolatiers in System 14.” Hinata stopped jumping. “Wait. Why do _you_ need one?”

“Hm.” Bokuto was squinting at the orb, eyebrows drawn. “You sure you want this, Tsum-Tsum? Orpheus Tech isn’t the most reliable, you know. I hacked into their algorithms for the Compatibility Monitor a few years ago. It’s mostly just wacky predictive modeling equations with intergalactic demographic data from the past millennium. All their stuff about harnessing the laws of physics is just sappy advertising for the masses.”

“Bokuto,” Atsumu said. “I appreciate your concern, but half your words just went over my head.”

Bokuto shrugged. “Well, who knows? Maybe it’s just a placebo effect. Who’s to say scientific deception isn’t also a valid path to true love?”

“Okay.” Atsumu held his hands up. “Enough Bokuto talk. Anyone volunteer as tribute?” He held the orb high in one hand.

Sakusa had turned a deep shade of red. “I um… I have something I need to check in the medbay,” he mumbled, not meeting Atsumu’s eyes as he stumbled out the door. 

“Huh,” Osamu’s projection said, watching him leave.

“Atsumu-san!” Hinata pointed at him. “I think you should go first.”

“Huh? Why!”

“Cause yer the idiot that bought the thing,” Osamu offered flatly.

“Okay, okay.” Atsumu held the orb chest-level, and gulped down a sudden jab of fear. “Orb? Show me my soulmate.”

As the four watched, the blue orbed paused in its pulsating. Two thin needles grew from a point in the center of the sphere. The needles began to spin in circles, slowly at first, then faster and faster until they were whizzing in complex patterns around each other that no one could decipher. The orb buzzed with motion, needles spinning so fast they blurred into the blue light…

The needles stopped.

One pointed at Atsumu.

The other pointed at an oozing pile of slime on Sakusa’s reading desk.

“Er, Hinata?” Atsumu called. “Didja lose yer lunch on Omi’s reading desk again?”

“That’s not my lunch,” Hinata said softly. “That’s a globber-mold, Atsumu-san.”

A long, solemn silence followed that revelation. Then Osamu’s projection collapsed onto the floor, laughing like a wild donkey.

“Yer -- Tsumu!” he wheezed, clutching at his ribcage. “I can’t believe this day has finally come! Yer soulmate is a glo-- a globber--” he gasped loudly, “--a globber-mulp!”

“Globber-mold,” Hinata corrected, looking highly concerned.

“It’s -- it’s gotta be a mistake!” Atsumu sputtered, his cheeks burning. His hands fluttered over the orb, over his hair. “S’like Bokuto said, right? It’s not like Orpheus Tech is reliable.” He shot Bokuto a wild, desperate look.

Bokuto stood in the corner, looking contemplative. “Well, Orpheus Tech usually relies on demographic trends with their romantic products, so it’s not like an unregistered non-human species would show up in their usual algorithms. But maybe…” He looked up at Atsumu with a serious expression. “Do you think you might be descended from either the globber or the slime genuses, Tsum-Tsum?”

“ _Andromeda!_ ” Atsumu shrieked. “I am _not_ related to a globber-mold, Bokuto!”

“Well, he does kinda match the color of your hair,” Bokuto offered. 

Osamu exploded into a fresh peal of laughter. “I owe … Orpheus Tech … my life,” he managed in between loud gasping breaths.

“Oi!” Atsumu glared daggers at his twin’s projection. “We’re related, ya irredeemable idiot! If I’m a globber-mold, so are ya!”

The captain of the MSBY Intergalactic chose this moment to enter the control room. “Hey Bokuto, do you have a minute?” Captain Meian asked. “I need you to check something in the engine room--” He broke off, taking in his crew’s stricken faces, Osamu half-dead on the floor, and an unidentifiable yellow glob on Sakusa’s desk. 

He walked right out again. “I’m too old for this shit,” he told the air as the door slammed shut behind him.

* * *

Sakusa Kiyoomi had kissed Miya Atsumu a grand total of one time.

All things considered, it was a pretty great kiss. Atsumu had been in the medbay for a week with a bad reaction to _Toxicodendron callisto_ , and refused to see Sakusa the entire time. He had to send Bokuto in with the painkillers and ointments for Atsumu. Hinata, the only one of the crew remotely competent at producing edible food in the kitchen, brought trays of soup into the medbay.

(Why the idiot decided to pick poisonous flowers, Sakusa had no clue. His heart definitely didn’t beat faster at the thought of Atsumu holding a bouquet of purple flowers, a smattering of petals caught in his bleached blond hair.)

It was early evening when Atsumu finally slid open the door of the medbay. “Omi?” he called. “Can ya come in here a moment?”

Atsumu looked a little paler, his hair a little ruffled from the medbay pillows. Most of the nasty red welts had faded from his skin, but a few pink scars still dotted his face. 

Sakusa thought he had never looked more handsome.

He followed Atsumu into the medbay, raising an eyebrow when Atsumu turned to face him. “Well?”

“Omi,” he mumbled, looking at his feet. “M’ sorry for bein’ dumb and keepin’ ya from the medbay.”

“It’s okay. Just … don’t go picking poisonous flowers again.”

Atsumu smiled softly. “They were supposed to be for ya, Omi.”

“Oh. They -- what?” Sakusa’s mind had gone blank, trying to process the meaning of Atsumu’s words. 

Atsumu’s face twisted. “Pretty lame of me, huh? I’m sorry Omi, I didn’t mean to cause ya trouble. I -- I’ll just go…” Atsumu turned around and made to walk away.

“Atsumu.”

Atsumu paused, every line in his body tense. “Yes?”

“Turn around.”

Slowly, Atsumu pivoted until he faced Sakusa. Sakusa’s eyes drank in the face he hadn’t seen in a week. Atsumu’s eyes were caught wide in surprise, and his gold eyes glinted under the medbay lights. The fading pink spots made his cheeks look dusted in blush. His mouth was shaped into a soft “O”, as though he didn’t expect Sakusa to call for him.

Sakusa closed the distance between them. Their faces hovered an inch apart.

“Can I kiss you?” Sakusa whispered. “Atsumu?”

“Yes,” Atsumu breathed.

Their lips met, and it was the most searing five seconds of touch Sakusa had ever experienced. _So this is supernova_ , he thought. 

Then the fire alarms blared, and the sprinkler system exploded jets of high-speed water droplets all throughout the spacecraft. Sakusa and Atsumu jolted apart, shaking the water from their clothes, the moment broken. Atsumu looked flustered as he dusted droplets off his hair.

From one floor down, they heard Hinata’s plaintive wail.

“Not the space oven!” he cried, his voice carrying.

* * *

Word had spread through the crew and across half the Intergalactic League that Miya Atsumu’s soulmate was, in fact, a literal slime ball.

Sakusa was not, he reminded himself, a person inclined toward jealousy.

Sakusa glared daggers at the globber-mold, which was currently asleep on Hinata’s chair in the control room. It let out a soft snore, and Sakusa imagined throwing it bodily from the emergency latch into the deep void of outer space. 

“Omi?” Bokuto’s voice interrupted Sakusa’s violent imaginings. His eyes were wide and owl-like. “You look a little tense there.”

“Do you ever get so angry at something, you want to throw it into a black hole and watch it vanish?”

To his surprise, Bokuto nodded solemnly.

“The spider-snake fiasco,” he said, as though that were all the exposition necessary. He glanced at his boyfriend’s projected image. “Right, ‘Kaashi?”

Akaashi was sitting beside Bokuto in an invisible chair, a book in his lap. He looked up at his name. “A rabid spider-snake ate my pet owl when we were roommates on board the Fukurodani,” he explained in a gentle monotone. “So Bokuto-san sprung a trap and trebucheted it into orbit around the Alpha Centauri.”

Sakusa’s mouth fell open. “ _Excuse me?_ ”

“Hey!” Bokuto’s hands were on his hips. “It was a pest and a public health hazard, okay?”

Akaashi snorted. “You wanted to keep it as a pet, Bokuto-san. It was only after I cried for two days straight that you decided it was a creature from hell.”

Sakusa’s brows were furrowed. “So… you did it because you loved Akaashi?”

Bokuto ran a hand sheepishly through his spiky hair. “Well… it took me a little bit to figure that out, actually.” He delivered a sappy, full-face grin in Akaashi’s direction. “But yeah, I was head over heels for Keiji back then.”

A light blush dusted Akaashi’s cheeks. “I didn’t know you liked me back then, Bokuto-san.”

“Well, of course I did! I’ve liked you since I met you, ‘Kaashi.”

The two proceeded to make googly love eyes at each other.

Meian, seated at the captain’s helm, gave a long-suffering sigh. “There’s a concept called _private quarters_ , kids. You know, where you’re supposed to go if you’d like to share intimate moments of romantic tension without--”

He broke off as an aggressive buzzing filled the air. “What in Andromeda?” Six pairs of eyes fixated on the blue light of the Orpheus Soulmate Detector as it sprang into motion. Two thin needles grew from the center, spinning faster and faster in patterns too complex for Sakusa to comprehend. They began to blur, disappearing into the light…

The needles stopped. One pointed to Bokuto’s chest, the other to a space ten inches to the left, where Akaashi’s projection sat in stunned silence.

Bokuto’s jaw dropped. “Agh-ashee!” he sputtered, pointing at the orb. “We…it…we’re…”

“Soulmates,” Akaashi whispered, looking equally shocked.

Behind them, Atsumu’s face had drained of all color. “No,” he insisted, shaking his head vigorously. “No, no, no, the Soulmate Detector is _broken_. It’s defective. It doesn’t work, remember?” He gave the globber-mold a wary sidelong glare.

The globber-mold, which had no sense of appropriate timing, let out a long burp.

Bokuto sprang to his feet and swept Atsumu into a tight hug. “Thank you, Tsum-Tsum!” he gushed. “Thank you for blessing us with this magical object! For allowing us a glimpse into the secret workings of the universe! Love truly is a beautiful thing!” When he let go, he had tears in his eyes. 

“But,” Atsumu whispered, looking stricken. “It’s… broken?”

Bokuto rushed back to his seat by Akaashi’s side. “Keiji!” he cried. “We have to research this! We have to learn more about how the Soulmate Detector works.”

* * *

Sakusa would have liked to report that the next few weeks on board the MSBY Intergalactic passed in blissful silence. Unfortunately -- as was often true on board the crowded spacecraft -- the weeks that followed were a painful cacophony of unadulterated chaos.

“But ‘Kaashi!” Bokuto’s loud voice rang out from the engine room or the control room or the dining hall at 3 a.m.-- wherever it was on board he had decided to lug his newfound passion for physiaffective technologies. “Did you see the newest paper from Orpheus Tech engineers on how quantum uncertainty and the gravitational field of dark matter affect the precision of measurement in the Soulmate Detector--”

His boyfriend’s projected avatar, either too polite or too in love to interrupt, followed behind him with his face in a book, nodding at appropriate intervals. 

Whenever Bokuto wasn’t hogging the spacecraft’s avatar-calling capabilities, Hinata used it for hour-long conference calls with his equally eccentric and over-caffeinated colleagues in the Intergalactic astrozoology scene. Unfortunately for the rest of the crew, these conference calls took place at unreasonable hours in the night. If Sakusa woke up to Nishinoya or Inuoka’s explosive screaming over the properties of globber-mold slime one more time, he was going to commit mutiny.

Most bothersome to Sakusa, however, was the strange shift that seemed to occur in his interactions with Atsumu. He was used to the Atsumu that followed him persistently around the spacecraft, zooming to his side and delivering a steady, embarrassing stream of space-themed pickup lines. What once was annoying had become an almost-comforting constant in the rhythm of his life. 

But since he had bought the Soulmate Detector, Atsumu began retreating into periods of floaty contemplation, sitting with glazed eyes and a furrowed brow at his seat in the control room. There were better days and worse days -- days when Atsumu lit up in Sakusa’s presence and days when it felt like Atsumu was consciously orbiting away from him. 

On the better days, a sort of electricity entered into their interactions, a persistent tug of gravity Sakusa couldn’t help but lean into. 

On the worst days, a pensive Atsumu would excuse himself from the control room, fly up the stairs to the observation deck, and lock himself away for hours. 

Sakusa never knew what set off those periods of silent avoidance, and he wracked his memory for any indication of what he had done wrong. It began to bother him more than he let on.

Today, Sakusa found with some relief, was one of the better days.

“Omi-omi!” Atsumu cried the moment Sakusa walked into the control room. When Sakusa settled at his (now slime-free) reading desk, Atsumu leapt over and sidled up to his left elbow. 

“What,” Sakusa asked him.

“It’s yer birthday in a couple weeks, yeah?”

“March 20,” Sakusa said, reaching for a journal and not meeting Atsumu’s glistening eyes.

Atsumu’s eyebrows began doing a funny dance on his forehead. “Well? Anythin’ ya want for yer birthday, Omi? Any list of gift ideas? Any secret, long-held desires ya wanna reveal to us?” A strange, undecipherable emotional note snuck into Atsumu’s last question.

“Ooh!” Bokuto’s head popped up from the mountain of physiaffective research papers he was reading. “Is it Omi’s birthday soon?”

“March 20th!” Atsumu proclaimed. “Help me wheedle gift ideas from Omi-kun, Bokuto!”

Bokuto’s silver-black hair began to bounce. “Omi!” He said loudly, looking as though he were about to say something important and incredibly profound. “What do you want for your birthday?”

Sakusa sighed. “Some peace and quiet,” he muttered, trying to hide his face behind the journal.

“Aw, Omi! Give us a helpful answer, please.” Sakusa could imagine the way Atsumu’s face was settling into that unfair puppy-eyed expression he always used to wheedle what he wanted. Sakusa mustered every last iota of his self-restraint to not look. 

“Omiii,” Atsumu began to whine. “Omi-omi-omi-omi…”

Hinata burst into the room with a new avatar projection in tow. Sakusa thanked his lucky stars for the distraction.

“--then he was like _sploosh!_ when we tried floating him in water so we stopped with that idea real fast. But when he crawls it’s like _tup-tup-tup_ and he does this super cool color change thing sometimes and he yawns like _hwaah!_ and when he accidentally falls on the floor it’s like _fwap pow!_ ”

Hinata was chattering at a mile a minute, gesticulating wildly and punctuating his statements with sound effects indecipherable to Sakusa. The avatar projection, a tall black-haired figure with a stiff posture, nodded at each statement as though he understood perfectly.

“Ahh, look Tobio! There he is!” Hinata pointed at his chair in the control room, where the globber-mold was taking a very long and very boring nap.

Kageyama’s eyes almost leapt out of his skull. “Can I … can I look at him more closely?”

Hinata rolled his eyes. “Well, duh. What you think I called you for, boke?”

“Hinata-boke,” Kageyama retorted, but he shuffled over to the slime ball almost reverently.

“You said he’s a cross between a globberbrain and a slime mold?”

“Yep!” A sharp ambition began to gleam from Hinata’s eyes. “The first documented cross between globber and slime-based creatures!”

Kageyama met his eyes, an equally scary glint rising in his own. “So when we publish…”

“...we’ll be the first astrozoologists…”

“...to report a new species -- hell, a new genus, even…”

“...from the Andromeda galaxy!” Hinata’s eyes looked like they were about to combust. “Think about it Tobio, it’ll be…”

“...the most amazing astrozoology breakthrough of the century.” Kageyama finished breathlessly. The two were caught in a deep staring contest across the control room, their eyes glowing more wildly and fiercely by the second.

“We’ll have made it to the top,” Hinata whispered. Under the spacecraft lights he looked enraptured by the prospect of greatness.

“What in Andromeda is happenin’?” Atsumu inquired with disgust.

“I ask myself that every day,” Meian replied, looking baffled but resigned. 

“But wait! There’s more!” Hinata exclaimed.

Kageyama’s face split into the sort of grin that belonged in horror movies. “Tell me.”

“Guess his scientific name, Tobio!”

Kageyama’s eyes looked practically evil. “What is it?”

“It’s _Physarum shou-tobio_!”

The avatar projection looked for a moment like he had stopped breathing. The terrifying gleam vanished; his eyes widened in shock. His face took on the constipated look recognizable as Kageyama’s rendition of joy. “You … you named him after us?” 

“Of course!” Hinata grinned, bright and happy. “Now we’ll be remembered forever!”

“Hinata-boke,” Kageyama whispered, his voice heavy with emotion.

Kageyama’s avatar projection sprinted through a table and a control panel and crashed weightlessly into Hinata’s arms. Their lips met in a passionate kiss.

“Oi!” Atsumu screeched at the two of them. “Get a room, ya idiots!”

Meian looked like he had just passed through the five dimensions of hell. “I don’t get paid enough for this job,” he muttered to no one in particular. 

The two astrozoologists broke apart when an insistent buzzing filled the control room. “Is that…?” Kageyama began, pointing at a blue pulsating orb with wide eyes.

“Oh, I almost forgot! Atsumu-san bought the Orpheus Soulmate Detector a few weeks ago,” Hinata explained happily.

As everyone watched, the orb grew brighter, extending a set of three needles which traced complex and mysterious patterns across the device’s blue light.

“Huh,” Hinata said. “It’s never grown three of them before.”

The needles spun faster, like bicycle wheel spokes, until they blurred into the flickering impression of a second sphere…

The needles stopped.

One pointed at Hinata. One pointed at Kageyama.

The third pointed to Hinata’s chair, where the globber-mold lay obliviously dreaming.

Hinata and Kageyama looked at each other. “We’re soulmates!” they exclaimed in unison, then immediately launched into a second round of kissing.

“Er.” Meian pointed at the soulmate detector. “So … what does it mean that the third needle is pointing at the globber-mold?”

“I’ll tell ya what it means.” Atsumu stood with a triumphant look on his face, hands on his hips. He lifted a finger to point imperiously at the device. “I’m not the only one that damn thing has matched with the globber-mold. It’s what I’ve been tellin’ everyone for weeks.” He smiled, wide and happy and confident. “The detector is broken!”

* * *

“The detector is not broken,” Bokuto insisted, adjusting the plastic-frame reading glasses on his nose as he frantically dug through the pile of papers on his desk. “We just haven’t found the right theory to explain it yet.”

“Aw, just give it up already, Bokuto.” Atsumu propped his feet up on his desk in the control room. “I’m tellin’ ya, the damn thing has been matchin’ shit right and left with the globber-mold. It’s obviously a defective model.”

In the days since Hinata’s and Kageyama’s cursed interaction, the Soulmate Detector had been unusually active, spinning into motion at seemingly random moments and pointing more often at the globber-mold and inanimate objects than any humanoid life forms.

“Well, there’s got to be an explanation. Interference from the left-handed spin of neutrinos, or … or maybe it has something to do with the properties of the globber-mold itself!” Bokuto looked hopefully at Hinata. “Right, Hinata?”

Hinata nodded vigorously. “Yep,” he said seriously, helping Bokuto sort through the papers. Since the Soulmate Detector had matched him and Kageyama, he’d suddenly developed a new interest in defending the device alongside Bokuto. “The globber-mold is a novel and unique species, after all. Who knows -- it could have undiscovered physical properties that allow it to have infinite soulmates.” He gestured at the atomic clock on the wall, at a pencil on his desk, at Sakusa’s coffee mug, and finally at Atsumu. “Among both humans and inanimate objects!”

“Hey!” Atsumu shot Hinata a dirty glare. “It matched ya with the globber-mold too!”

Hinata shrugged, looking unconcerned. “Yeah, but it said Kageyama was my soulmate.”

Atsumu groaned, throwing his face into his hands. “Okay, okay. I give up.” He rubbed his eyes, then stood up wearily. “Have fun with yer wild goose chase from hell. Both of ya. I’m gonna go take a walk around the spacecraft.” He fumed on his way out, making sure to slam the door behind him.

Outside, the passageway that connected the control room with the crew’s private quarters was cold, dark, and narrow. Atsumu shivered, hugging his chest as he made his way forward.

He padded silently through the dark. It wasn’t long before the Soulmate Detector was out of his mind. And good riddance, too; Atsumu had other, much more pressing things to worry about anyways. For instance: what in Andromeda’s name he was going to do for Sakusa’s birthday. 

Atsumu had come to the unfortunate realization last March that he was really quite terrible at gifts. This was after one near-death experience on a space walk, one kitchen fire, and one week spent in the medbay covered in hives. Osamu found the whole ordeal hilarious, and Suna commented dryly that his gift-giving ineptitude was going to cost him his life one of these days.

Unsurprisingly, neither of them were lifting a finger to help this year. (“Yer askin’ me to willingly forego my annual source of entertainment?” Osamu had laughed.) Which was _more than okay_ , Atsumu insisted adamantly. He was resourceful, witty, and calm -- hell, he was a celebrated Navigator for one of the best spacecrafts in the Intergalactic League! If he could handle the Andromeda Galaxy, he could definitely handle one person’s birthday, once a year.

He’d spent the last few weeks needling Sakusa for any crumbs of guidance.

“Hey, Omi-omi! What’s yer favorite cake flavor?”

“I’m allergic to sugar, milk, and eggs.”

“...Oh.”

“Omi-kun! What’s yer heart’s deepest wish?”

“The eradication of infectious disease from the Andromeda Galaxy.”

“Omi, d’ya like scented candles?”

“No.”

“Omiiiii. If ya had unlimited money, what would ya get?”

“A private asteroid where I could live alone, _without_ any inane questions.”

“... Oh, okay. Um, are ya sure about the ‘alone’ part, though.”

“If you ask me one more question, you’re going out the emergency latch, Miya.”

… Needless to say, Atsumu’s Just-Ask-Omi strategy wasn’t going so well.

Atsumu sighed as he rounded a corner in the passageway. Sakusa’s birthday was now a measly two days away, and he still hadn’t come up with the faintest idea of a cool gift, or gesture, or … anything, really, that could show Omi how important he was in Atsumu’s life. 

Why couldn’t communicating emotions be more straightforward? Why couldn’t people just have electric screens on their foreheads that spelled out exactly how they felt about each other? Everything would be so much easier, birthdays included--

Atsumu glanced up and his thoughts cut off. 

Sakusa Kiyoomi stood in front of him, facing the small passageway window with his back to Atsumu. The MSBY Intergalactic was passing the star Adhil, whose red light radiated out and bathed Sakusa’s silhouette in an ethereal glow. Atsumu took in the flaming aura that framed individual curls of his hair, the curve of his neck and shoulders, the lines of his arms, his torso, his legs. For the briefest moment in time, Atsumu stood wordlessly and drank it all in.

Sakusa met his eyes through their reflections in the window. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he whispered. The window made visible a sudden flare of red that leapt from the dancing surface of the star, arcing elegantly into the dark.

“Yes,” Atsumu said, looking only at Sakusa. 

Sakusa turned around with a soft smile. “Do you know why I joined the Intergalactic League, Atsumu?”

Atsumu gulped, taking a small, brave step forward. “Why, Omi?”

“Do you know the story of our first solar system?”

Atsumu nodded; everyone in the Intergalactic League knew about the first solar system. A small pit of sorrow settled in his stomach, mixing with the sparks of joy and wonder. He took another step. “The planetary system around the Sun.”

Sakusa nodded. “In another billion years, that Sun will begin to turn into a red giant.” He pointed out the window at Adhil. “It will engulf the first three planets. By the time the League finishes cleaning the Milky Way, and the first spacecrafts begin to return, the Earth will be long gone. We can return to the first galaxy, but not to the planet where it all began.”

Atsumu swallowed. He took another step. “Ya sound like one of those anti-conservation, anti-League geezers, Omi,” he quipped softly. He didn’t really mean it. As he said the words, he realized this was the longest he had ever heard Sakusa speak at a time, and he never wanted it to stop.

Sakusa shook his head. “In primary school, they showed us spacecraft footage of the nearest red giants. Adhil, Mirach, Gamma Andromeda, Nembus. They’re the most beautiful stars in the universe, Atsumu. My home is in the Veritate planetary system. I took one look and thought -- who cares if the universe is vast? I want to protect home, and home is the Andromeda Galaxy.” He lifted a red-tinted hand toward Atsumu’s face, but stopped halfway. “So that’s why I joined the Intergalactic Conservation League. To do what I could to conserve the beauty of home.”

Atsumu took one last step forward. He was almost touching Sakusa, his feet, his fingertips, the top of his nose tingling with the proximity. They stared at one another, Atsumu at the dark irises of Sakusa’s eyes, entranced at their depth, feeling like he was looking into space itself. There was so much he wanted to say to him: that he knew, he knew why Sakusa had joined the League, knew it like he knew his own heart, and it was the reason he’d fallen so endlessly for him. 

Instead, he made a brave attempt at a smirk. “I’d like to conserve yer beauty, Omi-omi.”

Sakusa’s shocked eyes almost leapt out of his skull -- and then suddenly he was laughing, belly-deep, a warm and sonorous thing. Atsumu watched him in awe. “That’s legitimately the worst pick-up line I’ve heard to date,” he chuckled, his face flushed light pink.

Atsumu leaned a fraction closer. “Can I kiss ya, Omi?”

“Yes.”

Atsumu closed his eyes, falling ever so slowly until his lips met something soft and warm. He felt Sakusa’s palm finally meet his face, curling warmly around his cheek. He imagined the two of them pressed against each other, framed by the red glow of the star Adhil. It was easier than breathing -- like gravity almost, like following a path etched deep into the fabric of the universe. For those few seconds, Atsumu was in bliss.

Then, as all good things end, Sakusa’s pager buzzed. 

He pulled away with a sigh, lifting it to his ear. He pressed a button. “What.”

“Omi! Where are you?” Bokuto’s voice blared loudly from the device. “Come quick! Code red! Medical emergency in the control room!”

“On my way.” Sakusa shoved the pager in his pocket. “ _Shit._ ” He ran a hand through his curls. “I have to go. I’ll see you later, Atsumu--” He took off at a run, his footsteps echoing loudly down the passageway.

Atsumu was left by himself next to a beautiful window view of the star Adhil. He blinked a few times at the air where Sakusa had just been standing. He saw his reflection in the window, and beyond it the beginnings of another red flare. 

_They’re the most beautiful stars in the universe, Atsumu._

Slowly, miraculously, an idea came together in Atsumu’s mind.

* * *

Sakusa barged into the control room at a full sprint, his face red. “Who died?” he gasped, out of breath. “Who is it? Who was gravely injured?”

Bokuto stared at him. “Died? Gravely injured?” He tilted his head at Hinata. “Hey, Hinata! Did anyone die?”

Hinata looked equally confused. “No crew members dead, Bokuto!” he reported.

Sakusa glared at them both. “So … why did you two call me here?”

“Oh!” Bokuto pointed at the back of Hinata’s chair. “The globber-mold just doubled in size. We thought he was reproducing or something, so we wanted a medical expert around in case of any complications.” Bokuto shrugged. “But it looks like it was just a rapid growth spurt.”

Hinata lifted the globber-mold into the air to show Sakusa. It had indeed doubled in size. 

Sakusa’s glare took on a murderous quality. “You mean to tell me,” he said in a slow, quiet voice, “that you interrupted me and called me here for _nothing_?”

“Oh, Omi!” Bokuto slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. “I forgot you only do human health and anatomy!” He looked over at Hinata. “You know, maybe we should invest in some slime mold physiology courses. Never hurts to be prepared.”

Hinata nodded vigorously. “You’re right, Bokuto!”

Sakusa turned his glare to the creature dripping slime from Hinata’s hands. “One of these days,” he said, “I will throw the globber-mold into a black hole.” He turned on his heel and stormed out of the room.

Hinata and Bokuto stared at the door in horror. “Not Tobio-kun!” Hinata cried, assuming a protective stance around the creature. 

* * *

On March 20th, in the year 4976533021, Sakusa woke up to the sound of party horns. 

“Rise and shine, Omi!” Bokuto called, peeking his head through the door of his private room. “Tsum-Tsum made breakfast for you!”

Sasuka groaned, covering his face with a pillow. It was his birthday today; he would stay in bed as long as he wanted. 

When he entered the kitchen, he expected to find the relics of a large fire (or at least a couple broken plates). Instead, he was greeted by an impressive spread: large, golden honey cakes, oatmeal with dates and nectar, plates stacked with umeboshi, fried chicken, smoked fish, and a large tray of onigiri. 

“They’re egg and dairy free,” Atsumu said, pointing at the honey cakes. He was fluttering his way around the kitchen with a hand in every appliance -- adjusting the oven, starting the toaster, peeking at the microwave, stirring a pot of some delicious-smelling concoction on the stovetop. 

Sakusa picked up a plate of umeboshi. “How did you know I liked these?” he asked.

“Easy!” Atsumu pulled another honey cake out of the oven. “Ya always get ‘em when we make a pit stop in System 14, Omi.”

“Oh.” A heavy emotion rose in the back of his throat. 

The five of the crew settled in their seats around the table, Sakusa shepherded to the place at the head by an insistent Meian. He watched Atsumu make his busy way to the seat at his right, and his heart gave a rapid involuntary flutter. 

Atsumu stuck a single candle into the honey cake closest to Sakusa. He lit it with a flicker of a match, then pressed a button on the table. The kitchen lights dimmed. “Make a wish, Omi!”

Sakusa watched the candlelight cast bright flickers across the tableware, drawing the shadows in a dance across Atsumu’s face. He closed his eyes. The face remained: dark yellow hair, golden eyes, dark eyebrows, light freckles. The sharp teeth and sliver of tongue in his smile. Sakusa remembered the reflection of Adhil swimming in those bright eyes. He held that image as he blew out the candle.

A round of raucous cheering assailed his ears. He opened his eyes to the sight of Hinata and Bokuto declaring open season on the onigiri platter, grabbing as many as their arms could carry and stuffing themselves to the limits of the human jaw. 

“Oi!” Atsumu swatted Hinata’s hands away from the platter. “It’s not _yer_ birthday, Shouyou!”

“Omi, give a speech!” Bokuto demanded, his mouth half full. “Tell us what you’re grateful for!”

Sakusa made a face as he picked a grain of rice out of his hair. “You’re all moderately less annoying than penicillin-resistant _Acenitobacter astraupsilon_. Which I suppose is a net positive to my life.”

“Heyy! You’re supposed to make us feel special.”

“All of ya are gettin’ confused whose birthday it is.” Atsumu placed his hands on the table. “Everyone, quiet! First order of business is givin’ Omi a peaceful and serene breakfast.”

“That’s redundant,” Bokuto mumbled, but he pressed his lips together obediently.

The table settled into a relative calm, which Sakusa was grateful for. It took an impressive fifteen minutes before Bokuto and Hinata began to fidget, barely restraining themselves from resuming their normally programmed chaos.

“Hey Bokuto,” Meian said, munching on a honey cake. “How’s research on the detector?”

Atsumu groaned. “Aw no, captain. Ya can’t set him off again.” 

To everybody’s surprise, Bokuto’s shoulders slumped into a posture of mild dejection. His eyebrows drooped despondently. “I think it’s broken,” he mumbled quietly.

Atsumu blinked at him. “Oh. What?”

Bokuto looked up sorrowfully. “‘Kaashi hacked into the Orpheus company files to look for their product development files and testing data,” he explained. He waved a hand vaguely around the kitchen as he spoke. “Apparently it’s pretty common for the Soulmate Detector to just point to things at random, including inanimate objects and non-human life forms. He’s downloading all their equations and predictive algorithms right now to check them, but he’s pretty sure it’s just a hoax.” His hair flopped mournfully onto his forehead. 

“Er,” Atsumu said after a pause. “Is that a legal thing for Akaashi to do?”

“The fewer questions asked, the better,” Meian told him, looking as though he were imparting a hard-earned piece of life wisdom. 

“Aw.” Hinata was the only one who looked disappointed, his face settling into a pout. “But what about that one paper about how the detector responds to the particle trails left by objects in love? They even used an antineutrino detector to verify the particle trajectory and everything…”

“Yeah,” Bokuto shrugged, looking lost. “‘Kaashi’s still looking into it, but it might have just been a coincidence for that one beta test.”

“Oh.” Hinata looked very small and very sad. “I’ll have to break the news to Kageyama, then.”

“Well.” Atsumu gave a long stretch, looking satisfied. “Guess that means yer resident Navigator can finally put an end to all those pesky rumors ‘bout my soulmate bein’ a slime ball.”

Sakusa pointedly ignored the small, irrational ball of jealousy that appeared in his stomach. Atsumu met his eyes and grinned, a little wickedly, looking like he knew exactly what Sakusa was thinking.

“Omi?” he asked, his eyes glistening. “Come on a walk with me?”

Sakusa gulped. “O-okay.”

He got up, ignoring the obnoxious wink Bokuto was delivering their way. “Have fun, Sakusa-san and Atsumu-san!” Hinata called cheerily, oblivious as ever.

Atsumu fielded all the chaos with an unaffected smirk, but soon as they stepped into the passageway his bravado vanished. He led them down the cold corridor toward the stairs, uncharacteristically quiet and avoiding Sakusa’s eyes.

“Atsumu,” he broke the silence when they made it onto the first steps. “Where are we going?”

Atsumu paused; he took a deep breath. “Have ya been on the observation deck before?”

Sakusa scrunched his eyebrows. As the medic on board, there was no reason for him to step foot in a room exclusively for long-distance navigation. “No. Why?”

Atsumu turned to look at him then, looking slightly more confident. His mouth was curved into a soft smile. Sakusa saw the glint of moisture where he’d been chewing at his lip. “Do ya trust me?”

“Yes.” The answer came immediately, without thought.

“Good.” Atsumu smiled a little wider. “Close your eyes, Omi.”

Again, before his brain had any time for protest, his body responded of its own accord. The dark stairwell disappeared. He was left with the quiet rumble of the ship’s engine, the cold of the passageway, the warmth of a body beside him. _Is this the moment?_ he thought. _Is Atsumu going to … ?_ He tensed, waiting for the soft press of lips to his--

Instead, warm fingers tangled with his own, and he was being led slowly, carefully up the stairs. A second hand came to rest on his elbow, stabilizing him. “Keep yer eyes closed,” Atsumu whispered to him, warm breath tickling his cheek. “I’ve got ya, Omi.” Sakusa imagined him walking backwards up the stairs, legs moving in tempo to the soft footsteps echoing in his ears. “Good, Omi,” he whispered to Sakusa at intervals. His fingers traced circles in Sakusa’s palm. “Almost there, almost there.” They walked for minutes or hours, time slipping Sakusa’s senses as he moved through a self-imposed dark, Atsumu’s hands all that tethered him to the present moment.

They came to a stop. “Just one minute more,” Atsumu promised, and Sakusa heard the sound of a door clicking open before they were moving once more, this time on flat ground. Were they on the observation deck? In space, weightless? They ventured forward a few steps then stopped again.

“Atsumu?”

“Omi.” His voice was soft.

“Is this the moment that we kiss?”

Atsumu chuckled in lieu of an answer. “Do ya trust me, Omi?”

“I already told you, yes.”

“Good. Don’t move, and don’t open yer eyes.”

Atsumu’s hands lifted suddenly away. The warmth vanished. Sakusa heard the soft pad of footsteps moving farther away. He reached his fingers into the air, searching.

“Atsumu?” he called. It was dark, and too quiet. A sudden panic rose in his throat. “Atsumu!”

“Over here!” he heard a familiar voice call. “Don’t panic, Omi. Almost ready.” He heard the quiet click of a button, and then a drawn out mechanical whirring, as though a heavy metal door were sliding open. He wrinkled his nose, tilting his face upward toward the sound. He followed it until it stopped, and the air was quiet again.

“Atsumu … ?”

“Open yer eyes now, Omi.”

Sakusa eased his eyes open, blinking back at the sudden dizziness. His eyes adjusted, slowly -- and then his mouth fell open.

Atsumu stood at the opposite end of a large room, about eighty feet away. Halfway between them, the dark steel of the spacecraft gave way to a transparent material that formed the floor, walls, and ceiling of the observation deck. Beyond it lay the stars -- millions of them, some bright orbs larger than the sight of Veritate from his home planet, some no more than pinpricks of light against the dark fabric of space. The closest star, Adhil, was a deep red orb hovering in a small corner of the sky.

Atsumu stood cloaked amid the stars, looking as though he were levitating with the universe as his backdrop. His eyes shone with the dizzying reflection of a million lights. They met Sakusa’s. “Come join me, Omi.”

Sakusa drifted forward in a daze. He found himself face to face with Atsumu, who was brushing his knuckles against his cheek, who was walking behind him now, who was guiding him gently to the very edge of the room.

Sakusa pressed a hand against the cold glass. “Beautiful,” he whispered. His breath produced a short-lived circle of fog on the glass, blurring the stars.

“Yes.” He felt Atsumu’s answer against the nape of his neck. His hands were against the glass now too, on either side of Sakusa’s head, boxing him in. Sakusa felt his heart race frantically against his ribcage; he didn’t trust himself to breathe. He watched Atsumu’s finger lift, pressing against the glass, pointing to a place millions of light years away.

“Do you see it?” he whispered. “Do you see the Milky Way?”

He followed the line of Atsumu’s finger until he spotted its object, eyes tracing over every swirl and delicate arm of the galaxy. He’d seen it in documentaries and classroom screens, caught glimpses through the small frames of spacecraft windows. He’d never seen it against the full backdrop of a million stars. His breath hitched. The closest galaxy, the first galaxy -- in the strange, distant way of history, a half-forgotten home of sorts…

“Did ya know, Omi,” Atsumu asked, his finger tracing the dancing patterns of the galaxy, “that people used to write stories about travelin’ among the stars? Back before spacecrafts, back before people had gone any further than the Moon, even.” He took a quiet breath, his voice low. Sakusa tried to follow his words, to imagine a time so long ago. “They made movies about soarin’ through star systems, flyin’ across galaxies, reachin’ the edges of the known universe. They stood on Earth and looked up at the Sky and saw the Andromeda Galaxy, just a small circle in the night.” His finger stilled, hovering almost reverently over the spiraling arms. “Do ya ever wonder what the night Sky must have looked like on Earth, Omi?”

Sakusa was filled with a nostalgia he’d never felt before. “Do you sometimes wish we’d never left?” he whispered back. “Does it ever feel too vast?”

Atsumu hummed. “All the time. The curse of a Navigator, Omi. Knowin’ just how much empty space is really out there.”

Sakusa turned against the glass, facing Atsumu now, his back to the universe. “So how do you handle it?”

Atsumu had the softest glow in his eyes, something intrinsic shining out from beneath the reflection of the stars. “How do I handle it?” he whispered. He began to trace Sakusa’s features with a finger, lingering on his lips, his nose, his cheekbone. “I think about what grounds me. What keeps me right here, right now.” The light press of a finger against his two moles. “I think about all the people in my life, all the small and familiar things that make me who I am. And recently, Omi,” a hand lifted to cup his cheek, “I’ve been thinkin’ a lot about _ya_.”

Sakusa held his gaze, the fire of his touch. Both of them were scarcely breathing.

If someone asked him to explain the force of gravity, Sakusa would put them in this very moment, right here, right now. He would place them in his shoes against the glass, let them feel the inescapable force compelling him to move in, curl down, lean closer, inch by inch until his breath ghosted against a lovely blushing cheek. He would have them feel the electric moment his eyes slipped shut, and a pair of lips pressed softly, slowly, finally against his own.

“Omi,” the lips murmured softly, and Sakusa found his own name had never tasted sweeter.

He surged forward, lips pressing more firmly against Atsumu’s, and his fingers found his way to the nape of his neck. He began to trace small circles into the soft skin, dancing ever upward, until his fingers had lost their way and tangled into the soft folds of blonde hair. 

Atsumu gasped, mouth tugging upward. “Omi,” he whispered, like a sacred word. “Omi, omi.” Another long, deep kiss. “Omi.”

“Atsumu.” He cupped a palm around a warm cheek, watched the way the starlight made his face glow and his hair shimmer. He placed a butterfly kiss at the corner of his mouth. “You’re so beautiful.” A kiss on his cheek. “Atsumu.” A kiss on his eyelid. “Atsumu.” A kiss against the base of his neck, where he felt the flutter of a racing pulse. “You look like Veritate,” he whispered into his skin. “You look like home.”

Atsumu gave a small gasp at the words -- and then he was pulling Sakusa back up, searching for him, until their lips found each other once more. “I love you, Kiyoomi,” he whispered back.

* * *

Two floors below them, in the control room, the Soulmate Detector began to whizz uncontrollably. Its needles spun in mysterious patterns, circling each other, faster until they blurred together. As the crew held its breath, the needles stopped.

Both were pointing straight up at the ceiling. 

“Huh.” Bokuto blinked at the contraption, then gave a shrug. “Guess it really is broken.”

The needles were pointing at the exact spot on the observation deck where a pair sat with intertwined hands, staring out at a sea of stars, feeling as though they'd finally arrived home.


End file.
